


in secret, between the shadow and the soul (as certain dark things are to be loved)

by Tyranno



Category: Red Rising Trilogy - Pierce Brown
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Set sometimes during book 1--2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:19:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8425141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyranno/pseuds/Tyranno
Summary: Adrius is reluctant to think of Darrow as a puzzle, because that sounds as if he wants to solve him. He doesn't.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on my phone, so no formatting I'm afraid. The title comes from [this poem](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/m.poemhunter.com/poem-amp/xvii-i-do-not-love-you/?client=ms-android-cubot)
> 
> ((All characters are 18+))

Adrius grew up watching people. His first memory was of wandering a blinding white marble palace of a moon somewhere, trailing guests and staring at them long enough to make them uncomfortable. He inspected their perfect faces, all beautiful in a sterile kind of way, drawn from a dozen shades of gold and amber. 

His first years he spent mimicking. Speech, tone, gesture. He practiced expressions in front of a mirror, memorised phrases and strung them together like beads on a string. When he grew tired of gold's distinctive mix of pride and fear he watched studied servants, trailed after them and listened to what they said when they thought nobody was around. His sister noticed, caught him mouthing words in time with a vid, and never looked at him the same again.

He would try anything--say, do anything--to try and fix the gulf that seemed to exist between him and others. Others seemed to feel easily, express easily; words seemed to spring up when they were sympathetic, angry, disappointed. Nothing sprang to his mind in those moments. In his head there was only ever silence, and the cool purr of his thoughts. 

When he was younger, he thought himself heartless. A true beast. He killed a peacock to see if he would feel anything, to see if its pink insides would spark anything in him. It didn't.

He grew older and he cared less. He lost his fear at seeming cold in other's eyes, and part of him started to enjoy the fear he sparked. His younger years studying people of any Colour proved useful--he could read people as easy as if it was written on their face. He could tell which planet a Gold had come from, which family, what colour the majority of their servants were---before they even said a word, he knew them. And knowing someone, really knowing someone, it was like having their heart in your hand.

And then he met Darrow.

Darrow au Andromedus was strange. From the way he walked, he looked martian, but he stood oddly, weight on one leg, like a Red construction worker. But at rest his shoulders slumped and his hands hovered over his razors, eyes forever watching his friends closely, waiting for them to turn on him. It was not irrational fear in his eyes then, but a worn sort of wariness. He was prepared to kill them. That look reminded Adrius of an Obsidian. 

All in all, Adrius could connect traits from all colours to Darrow. Darrow was as imaginative as a violet, kept his word like a brown. He was as stubborn as a grey. He knew the stars like a blue and knew the starships like a green. He could haggle like a silver, speak like a white, lay laws like a copper. He even showed a little healing, knew how to wrap bandages and staunch bleeding as well as any yellow. 

(It was a hot, difficult night when Adrius started wondering if Darrow was like a pink, too.)

And Darrow fought like no colour, like no human Adrius had ever seen. 

He twisted and turned like a leaf on the wind. He moved as quickly as a man who had lived his whole life fighting, and as easily as if he had spent it dancing. Arrows, lasers, knives, bullets, all seemed to bend around him rather than vice versa. Darrow made the rest of the fighters look stupid and sluggish, he moved with the grace of water and fire and they were left trying to hit at him with heavy weapons, like trying to catch a bird with a sledgehammer. 

Adrius had heard of him long before he saw him. Tales of the Reaper, a boy with eyes like white gold, soaked in blood, a boy more myth than flesh. They said he had a wolf's tail hidden under his clothes and teeth like a shark's. The tales were annoying and entertaining in turn, he believed none of them. 

And then he saw him, a boy with eyes like white-gold and soaked in blood, and he wanted him. 

It was such a thick, hot want that at first, he didn't recognise it. It wasn't greed or pride. It wasn't even curiosity, although he was definitely curious. 

He walked around with this heavy, dark thing in his guts for so long until he learned of Darrow and his sister's relationship. They were twins, both thin and muscular, wiry like desert dogs. His sister kept her long hair braided close to her scalp so that at a distance they were identical. It was easy to swap his sister for himself in his mind's eye, to imagine himself pressed to Darrow's side in that cave, to imagine them sharing heat and sounds in the cold. And then it was obvious. 

He wants to fuck Darrow.

The moment he realised it, recognised the swirling lust in him for what it was, it was like a dam broke. His mind, usually so cold and empty, was suddenly fill with a variety lurid scenes. Darrow's body stretched out like a pink whore, legs bound, Darrow with his face pressed against the mattress, Darrow slicked wet and panting, Darrow flushed and shaking, Darrow, Darrow, Darrow...

Adrius' conscience torments him. His mind supplies him with a hundred lewd scenarios, he imagines gripping Darrow's hair until he can almost feel the golden hair between his fingers, he imagines everything until he can see it play out in his mind's eye. 

For now, he mused, a Gold's life was unsatisfaction. Lions bred for war bat uselessly at each other's ears and distract themselves with cheap toys. He spends his time working half-heartedly, and tries (and fails) to stop his mind trailing back to the last andromedus. 

Adrius is not one to follow doomed trails. Risky ones, yes, but he wasn't a fan of lost causes and for all that Darrow is different, Adrius can read him. He has a gap in his connection to his friends, a little like Adrius' own, that keeps him from letting others close. The others talk to him, befriend him, but still cannot cross the gap, cannot see his heart for what it is. Even Virginia could could not breech it, this strange separation. Darrow existed as an island, entire to itself. 

So Adrius lets his instincts take over. He talks to Darrow as another Gold, trusts him only as a Gold should trust another, watches him as a comrade, as a brother in arms. 

And if Adrius thinks of Darrow obsessively in the dark hours, imagines Darrow under him to the point where he can almost feel it, well... he's well used to having distasteful things on his mind.


End file.
